


Elpis

by niblick_iii



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Pining, References to Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, Spoilers for Episode #156
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:07:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24370315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/niblick_iii/pseuds/niblick_iii
Summary: “I’m now devoted to, like, hope, and optimism, and doing what comes next so hard, that… I’m literally magic, right? And that’s weird. But it’s happened, so it is”The thing is. Hope isn't nice.
Relationships: Hamid Saleh Haroun al-Tahan/Zolf Smith
Comments: 10
Kudos: 35





	Elpis

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still not quite sure what this, it's sort of part character study, part enthusiastic headcanon rant? Basically, the last episode of RQG collided in my brain with a thing I read in Stephen Fry’s Mythos about Ancient Greek attitudes to hope and multiple interpretations of Pandora’s box and this was the result.

_“I’m now devoted to, like, hope, and optimism, and doing what comes next_ so hard, _that… I’m literally magic, right? And that’s weird. But it’s happened, so it is”_

That was the bugger of it, of course. No one really understood what that meant. Not really. You tell someone you’re a Cleric of Hope and they think it’s all fluffy and warm. But that’s not what it is. Hope isn’t _nice_. Hope means never giving up. Hope means always striving. Hope means always thinking a better world is within your grasp no matter how many times life has proven you wrong. And when you take the white hot forge of belief and hammer your hope to a point so sharp you can change the fabric of reality, you realise that it’s up to you to bring that new world about. And when everything goes to hell, you have to carry the burden of everyone’s hope on your back and not let yourself be crushed by its weight. Hope is a bastard. Why do you think it was shut up in a box along with all the evils in the world?

Zolf knew the story everyone was told as a kid. That Pandora looked into the box to see that it was empty, and out crawled Hope, the one shining beacon to help survive the horrors to come. As he got older, he heard people say that Hope was inadvertently left there, withering in the box, even that comfort denied to the world. But that doesn’t sit right with him either. Zolf is no religious scholar, but he knows that Zeus was never that merciful in his punishments. No, Zolf knows, better than anyone, that Hope is just another torment, a promise for a future that may never come. Maybe Pandora did trap it inadvertently, maybe it was a heroic act to protect the world from the only thing she could. But it didn’t work. Zolf was the living embodiment of the fact that hope had leeched into the world anyway. It was his power and his burden, to know the full terrible depths of the strife that hope could bring.

Hope without action was a soporific, stupefying people into the naïve belief that everything would just work out. But Zolf had stood at the bottom of the well of hopelessness, seen the tiny pinprick of light overhead that was his escape and known that it was only his action, only by climbing, inch by agonising inch, climbing in the hope, but not the expectation, of relief that he could pull himself out. And when he had emerged blinking in the sunlight, having remade himself, remade his power to draw on the hope he had forced himself to have, he had realised that his climb wasn’t done, may never be done, but that the only way to go on was to _go on_. He had to keep moving towards that future his hope told him would be there, no matter how hard the journey was. Every step he took was vital, for him, for the world. Once false move, one stumble, and he’d fall back to the bottom of that well and he didn’t think he could climb out again.

And every time Hamid smiled at him, or looked at him with eyes so full of understanding, well that was a torment of a different kind, a whole new world of pain that hope could bring him. At least saving the world was a future that he could see a path to. But this? Impossible. But hope, terrible wonderful hope pierced his heart every time and he couldn’t ignore the small quiet voice that said “maybe?”


End file.
